Tune for a Peaceful Night - guqin - Chinese slide guitar

For my 50th vid I wanted to do something special! So here's a litte "Zen" like piece on the Chinese guqin.
I started to play this instrument, on and off, a few years ago when I had time on my hands as I was clustered to a wheelchair due to a broken kneecap.
The history of this instrument goes back 3000 years.
If you want to know more about it then do a youtube search on "guqin wang fei"
She's a great guqin player and an authority on its history. She teaches in San Francisco and runs an internet shop that sells instruments, books, cd's and dvd's.
I kinda wonder what Blind Lemon would think of this ;-)

The wire you see coming out of the guqin is the microphone I used to record; so this is not an "electric" guqin as some people think - it's just miked up close,hence the sound.

I bought my qin (Naga model from around $1700) from Wang Fei at www.chineseculture.net
A quality instrument without any problems. It came directly from China without any hassles.
I think the instruments from $3-500 are student grade instruments; not bad but not great either.
In any case if you're not sure if you'll be able to play it, it might be better to buy such an instrument first or try to find someone in your area that has one.

One thing to watch though is the tuning system. Mine has a modern tuning system; the attachements under my qin have guitar-like tuners or machineheads. The old system just attaches the strings to two posts without any possiblility to adjust them. This means, I saw it on a video, you'll have to pull like crazy when you attach them as the other side of the qin (right side where you'll see those tassels) has limited tuning ability (they're just for fine tuning).

I've been playing guitar for 38 years so I have a well developed right hand and that did not pose any problems in playing the qin. The left hand takes some practice and pain on the thumbnail; my left hand "guitar fingertop calluses" are a bonus too. If you haven't played any string instrument it will be tough and you will need a lot of commitment (15-30 minutes a day will not get you far). This is not like a guitar with which you can play a thousand songs strumming three chords.

I bought tons of dvd's and books....all in chinese of course and so far I only understand "meoh"...
The only book I found useful is Gong Yi's big green book that comes with two cd's; his dvd set is also good. The book has western standard music notation and I transferred the songs I wanted to play into guitar-like tablature. I once mentioned this at a qin forum and was laughed away of course; tradition is a very strong point for them. Nevertheless that tablature says where to put my fingers at which string and which string to pluck and that's all you need.
There are several english spoken sites that explain all the chinese characters used in qin so you'll be able to find out what it means. The songs in chinese tablature without an audio sample and standard music notation are for us western people impossible to learn though.

Thanks to my guitar-like tablature I was able to learn and memorise songs and thanks to my guitar experience (left and right hand) I was able to play, let's say 'acceptable' in a short time; without those features I would not have gotten that far

Category:

Music

Tags:

• guqin
• chinese
• zither
• wang
• fei
• folkmusic
• tao
• ancient
• gu
• qin
• slide
• guitar

[Lileyflor]

Hello, this is a wonderful instrument ; I started on it in Beijing but unfortunately had to leave before I had learnt enough. Could you advise a book in which I could get the information on how to play it (the various ways to use fingerplay and how to tune the instrument) ? I feel sad that my instrument sits alone unused... and I so liked the sound.

[daddystovepipe]

@Lileyflor

please read the video description for more info and contact chineseculturecom for the Gong Yi book.

there's also a lot of info on the net, just google guqin

[daddystovepipe]

Thanks.

As a fingerpicking guitarist the switch to this instrument is not difficult. There's plenty material available in standard notation; the chinese characters say in a very detailed way which fingers to use and how to hit the strings. They are not ancient characters but there are ancient scripts of songs. Because there's no rhytmic indication study with a teacher used to be necessary; with western notation this is not needed anymore.

[dancingpopcorn1]

great interpretation but pls don't call qin a guitar...it is so weired and totally destroy all the meanings and association with Qin.

[daddystovepipe]

@dancingpopcorn1

I know it's not a guitar (it's a cither) but I called it that way to arouse curiosity....it works if you consider the number of views

[SombraDeLaMosca]

wow, very interesting sound, and great video description!!! just 2 questions remaining, what material are the strings? and did you ever play with a bottleneck?

(traditionalists may forgive me) thumbs up!

[daddystovepipe]

@SombraDeLaMosca

The strings are nylon with a metal wrapping (like a classical guitar's bass strings). Originally they used silk, they still do but that's for the real traditionalists.

I tried the bottleneck (two minutes ago) and the sound is very poor...

[TheInfoBlast]

how long does it take to learn?

and how much are those.

your looks expensive tho really nice

awesome playing

[alincielo]

Wooow!!!! Bravo from Italy!!!

[Sanningsministeriet]

Blind Lemon woulda liked it and you know it. Blind Willie would love to put his hands on a qin and go bananers. Good work on these tunes you put up! I got hooked on qin by hearing it a couple of years back and being a slideman myself i instantly made the connection between the two, cool to see that someone else did too!

[Porchduck]

Hey didn't anyone notice the pic in the background? It's Blind Lemon Jefferson!

[musicbyshaun]

very cool, very pretty sounding, must have this! 

[slayersave9]

wow this is one of the most unique instruments i have ever heard played i play guitar and its nothing like this beautiful instrument:))))))))))))

[DamianPabloGonzalez]

just a little technical advice, completely independent from the video content: try to do stereo the audio, or, if mono, declare it as mono in your software, 'cause in this video it only sounds in left speaker, and when using headphones is very annoying.